


Lost in Translation

by ttme123



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Humor, Language Barrier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 03:12:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3472319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ttme123/pseuds/ttme123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just before what should have been an exciting trip to Space Florida, the TARDIS telepathic circuits break down. Predictably, or perhaps not, the telepathic translations cease along with them, leaving the Doctor and his unfortunate companions unable to communicate, due to the Doctor's surprisingly lacking knowledge of the English language. What charades will occur while they wait?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in Translation

**Author's Note:**

> Moved from ff.net.  
> Sorry if any of the non-English parts are off.

“Space Florida! Let’s go to Space Florida!” The Doctor ran around the TARDIS console, excitedly shouting supposedly safe tourist locations at the two extremely amused Ponds, both of whom were leaning against the railing, sharing almost concerned looks.

“Uh, Doctor…” Amy began, looking back at the alien hilariously posed lying across the console, attempting to reach a lever positioned on the side opposite him.

“Yes, what is it now, Pond?” He grinned cheekily, looking up momentarily from the panels of buttons and switches.

“Didn’t you say there was something wrong with the TARDIS you needed to work on first? I don’t want to end up in the middle of another Sontaran riot again.” Pointedly ignoring Rory’s curious looks and stammering, she sauntered over to the Time Lord and bent over to look him in the eyes.

“Well, yes, but it’s not really all that important. Not really. Mostly. It’s fine! There’s no reason to worry, Ponds, it’s just a minor issue with some of the telepathic fields. I think something might be blocking them, which is making it harder for me to communicate with the TARDIS.  But as long as we don’t wander too far off, we should be perfectly,” he paused, straining to reach a button that was just a bit too far for him to reach. Sighing, Amy pushed it, gesturing for the Doctor to finish his thought. “okay!”

“But couldn’t that be kind of, I don’t know, dangerous?” Both Amy and the Doctor looked up, neither of them expecting Rory to say anything.

“It shouldn’t be, I just wouldn’t be able to sense her as easily, so finding her might get a bit tricky, but we wouldn’t have to worry about that whilst on vacation!” He leaned back against the railing, grinning from ear to ear.

Suddenly, he said something in another language so beautiful, it sounded almost like song, as he began to stoke the TARDIS’ railing.

Rory and Amy shared a confused look before returning their gazes to the 900 year old boy who simply continued jabbering on in that stunning, gibberish language.

“Uh, Doctor? What was that?” Amy asked, brows furrowing.

His eyes shot directly to hers as he said something else, followed by ‘Amy.’

“English, please?”

“English?” he looked confused at first, before gasping in shock and muttering rougher words that the humans assumed were probably curse words.

“Doctor, what’s happening?” Rory walked over to where the other two were, wrapping his arm around Amy’s waist as he approached her.

“…Masalah?” followed by a shake of his head. “Problemen, problemas? Problems.” He shouted something excitedly in the other language before quickly returning to English.

“Ship is… getting problems.” Struggling, the Doctor waved his hands, presumably indicating the TARDIS. He rubbed his throat, continuing “sermonis problems. No! Speech problems.”

Amy and Rory looked at each other again, then back at the doctor.

“Doctor, why aren’t you speaking English?” Amy began, before being cut off by the alien himself.

“Slow, please. Speech slow. Por favor.” The Doctor said, frowning, before whining something in the other language.

“Uh, did the TARDIS stop translating? He said something about telepathic fields being blocked earlier.” Rory said, mostly thinking aloud.

“But don’t you speak English, Doctor? A _mighty_ Time Lord like you should be able to speak such a _primitive_ language like English, right?” Amy said it jokingly, but still hoping maybe he was kidding around, and he could easily communicate with them, even if Rory was right.

“Si modo, Latine sciebant. Dico aliqua.” The Doctor growled, stomping in a minute circle around the console.

“Did he say Latin? Rory, you’re a nurse, you speak Latin, right?” Amy turned to Rory, taking his hands and shaking them.

“Uh, no, I don’t know any Latin. I considered taking it to help me become a doctor, but a bunch of other med students said it was a waste of time.” Rory shook his head, shrugging.

Scoffing, Amy returned her attention to the Doctor, who had begun talking to himself in the mystifying language she assumed was Gallifreyan.

“How long will it take to fix it?” She tried to speak as slowly and non-condescendingly as she could, but it was hard to keep the sarcasm from leaking into her tone of voice.

After a moment of contemplation, the Doctor held up two fingers, wiggling the digits back and forth, whilst simultaneously shrugging his shoulders.

“Two? Two what? Minutes? Hours? …Days?” with each suggestion Amy got progressively more nervous.

Shaking his head, the Time Lord began trying to form his mouth around a word he couldn’t seem to find.

“Wochen? Weken? Weeks? Two… weeks. I think.”

Stunned, the Ponds shook their heads.

“Did you mean days? There’s no way it could take that long.” Rory said, almost pleading with the Doctor.

“No. Weeks. Long time. I find problem, fix it. It takes un long time. I leave you off and pick you up when I fix it. If you want.” The Doctor shrugged, unused to having a limited vocabulary. He strode off, in the direction of the nearest storage room, muttering more in his beautiful language.

With tired looks on their faces, the couple sighed, and sat down on the swings they had been using just earlier that day, or as close to what you could call a day on the TARDIS.

“It’s not a big deal, he says. We’ll be fine, he says.” Amy scoffed, rolling her eyes and playfully glaring in the direction of the Time Lord.

* * *

 

“How much longer, Doctor?” Amy moaned, sprawled across the floor of the TARDIS on her back and trying to look up at the 900 year old man pacing back and forth besides the console.

He muttered something, then unexpected shouted and ran to the other side of the console, before bending down and fiddling with something beneath it.

“Doctor…?”

“Amy, just leave him alone, he can’t even understand what you’re saying.” Rory shuffled over to where the ginger was lying down and plopped down next to her, legs dangling over the edge of the platform.

“But it’s been almost two weeks already!”

“It’s only been nine days.”

“That’s pretty close!” Exasperated, Amy pulled herself up and sauntered to where the Doctor was kneeling.

“What’re you smiling about, Doctor?” Confused, Amy bent down, trying to get a glimpse into the inner workings of the TARDIS.

“Amy…” The Doctor beamed, “I can understand you!” Jumping up, he grabbed Amy by her shoulders and twirled her around.

“You—You fixed it?!” Excited, both Ponds moved to hug the alien, who was already celebrating by giggling uncontrollably and jumping animatedly.

“I did! It feels great talking to you with an unlimited vocabulary again. Well, technically I was talking to you before, but you couldn’t understand me and I could barely understand you. Well I could understand you some, but not really enough, and I had an even harder time talking than listening! It was very irritating, but now that I’ve fixed her, we can all talk again! And now I don’t even have to worry about the repairs, because I just fixed them too!”

“Great, now we’re going to hear you talking non-stop for the next few days,” rolling her eyes, Amy smiled, joking.

“Oh, no, I’d say for the next few weeks!” Laughing along with her, the Doctor hugged the two companions one last time before releasing them and leaning against the console behind him.

“Just one question, Doctor. Why don’t you speak English?” Rory tilted his head, having honestly expected the Time Lord to at least _know_ the language, even if he didn’t always speak it.

“Well, I , uh. I’ve been busy, and I’ve never really needed to and…” Grinning sheepishly, the Doctor rubbed the back of his neck, averting his gaze.

“Right, Doctor…”

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and leave kudos if you enjoyed!


End file.
